


This is My Choice

by KorrohShipper



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Day 1, F/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steggy - Freeform, Steggy Week 2019, Time Travel, steggyweek2k19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 18:17:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19817860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KorrohShipper/pseuds/KorrohShipper
Summary: In the span of four years, Peggy's ran out of questions. But now, a spitting image of Steve sat in front of her, and the one word that registered in her mind waswhy?





	This is My Choice

**Author's Note:**

> **Day 1 (Monday): It's Endgame, baby!**
> 
> Written for Steggy Week 2019.

Peggy knew that, the moment she had to resort to stealing the S.S.R.’s photograph from the Captain America file, the reality came crashing down at her. It was cemented when an older woman who introduced herself as Winifred Barnes, gave her the family’s condolences—Steve was gone, as much as the wreckage of the Valkyrie, and he was lost to her forever.

In those small moments, when the nation mourned their Captain America, it occurred to her that whatever understanding that may have gone between them, whatever dance they had planned, or whatever love that burgeoned, it would never happen again to her.

Even with Daniel, it was clear as day—she would never love anyone the way she did for Steve.

And so, when Angie had all but pulled her into the doors of the automat, gushing about some tall stranger who had been asking for her, she never expected to see him.

Steve Rogers, alive as if he had never crashed the bomber into the arctic some four years ago, was eating a slice of cherry pie, occasionally craning his neck around, boosting his head up as if he was still a lanky, ninety-pound asthmatic before the super soldier serum.

She froze, in the spot, and only moved when Angie linked their arms together, still oblivious to the turmoil that raged on in her head, which told her to be logical because no man, not even Steven Rogers, could survive the arctic’s cold and unforgiving winds for four years and the man who had been sitting in her booth was in fact a sleeper agent.

Peggy desperately tried to convince herself that it was no more than an agent. 

But her heart was a different one altogether. The pain from Steve’s death, the hurt she thought had faded and numbed away, had returned with a rude awakening. Her fingers itched to run their way through his hair again, like how she always wanted to.

“Come on, English!” Angie tugged on her and pulled her right in front of the bearded man, who stared at her, eyes as wide as saucers. She leaned in to her conspiratorially. “Couldn’t you just eat him up with a spoon?”

Beneath all the unruly hair of his beard, Peggy noted a smile on his face. He heard Angie, no doubt, super hearing or not, because Angela Martinelli is not a woman known for discretion.

“Hey, Angie! Coffee on the counter, 12 needs a refill!” a blonde waitress yelled, pulling Angie away from the conversation and left them alone.

Steve stood up, his face an adorable shade of red, mixed with an equal amount of amusement. “Please. Sit.”

He ushered her into the booth, the stiff, faux-leather uncomfortable under her. She stared at him intently, waiting for a sign of a flaw to make itself known. She scoured her mind for an image of Steve, to make a point of reference.

But there was nothing.

“I know I’m pretty late. Would you believe me if I said I couldn’t call my ride?” a small, almost cheeky and impish grin beamed at her. But she knew better, the smile held so much more than that, it hid much more than teasing.

She leaned back into the booth and pursed her lips into a firm line and schooled her features to neutrality. “How? Why?”

Peggy found herself asking the two questions and couldn’t help but reminisce on the four years that passed since Steve’s death on the Valkyrie.

Four years seemed like an eternity away, the terrors of war a lifetime ago. But Steve was in front of her and suddenly, the few weeks after the bomber had crashed returned in all its forceful gravity. In the little moments she found herself alone and away from everybody, she cried. She would glare at the ceiling, as if it held the answers, and flung a ripe of curses that would put a sailor to shame.

**_Why_** , she cried at the S.S.R. dormitory ceiling, **_of all people, why did you take Steve?_**

But, as often as she asked the world of her injustices, she had to stop. She couldn’t mourn, not yet. There was still a war to be fought, intelligence to be sought, codes to break, and a death to avenge. In the wake of his death, she didn’t break down, she had to remain strong, if only for Steve, because he would have died for nothing and she couldn’t allow that. Peggy reasoned that if she couldn't protect him, then she would protect his legacy and what he died for.

And when the war was won, when she had nothing else left to protect, she asked again.

It was much more painful, decidedly, after the war.

When Nazi Germany had surrendered and signed the armistice, the people of London took to the streets. They cheered and clapped and threw whatever light they had into the air because they had won.

The 107th had cheered, families were reunited and excited phone calls were made. They were alive and it killed her, knowing what a horrible person it must have made her to want Steve in their place. It disgusted her to no end, but it didn't make the feeling any less true, the desire any less felt, the question any less ringing.

**_Why_** , she had asked herself in stewing pain, **_had they survived and not Steve?_**

They were all soldiers, victims of weak men who cowered under a pretense of power. They were all the casualties of war, the soldiers of the armies and the agents of the S.S.R., but Peggy was alone in the cheer and happiness of the victory.

And, with whatever, pity and hurt that continued to plague her, anger tipped over to a boiling point when she had visited the bombed out portion of London, her feet found themselves planted into a familiar pub where Steve once tried— _and failed_ —to drink his sorrows away.

_“Give Barnes the dignity of his choice.”_

She told him that advice, once, when he was wracked with the guilt of Barnes’ death with the plot to bring Zola in.

And then, when the time came for that damned radio conversation through the comms. “This is my choice,” he told to her, the static-filled room also sounded with the howling winds that filled the Valkyrie’s cockpit as he dipped the plane down to his certain death. Her lips curled down and her eyes stung with tears—because _how dare he use her own words against her?_

Peggy, fortunately inebriated enough, had shouted at the top of her lungs that night in the cold streets of London. Why on earth was Steve so bloody dramatic? Always so damn righteous with his moral compass.

She roared a guttural sob and shed her tears. They had time, she could have gotten Howard on the line, she could have found him a safe landing sight. She hated how she had bared herself to him and begged him to listen to her but he didn’t. Her stomach churned painfully, memories of the conversation had filled her mind—she had asked for his coordinates, and all she received in return was a revised speech she gave him at one point.

Peggy hated it, how he was so ready to fight for the people and die for them, how she couldn’t hate him for being who he was, but rather for dying— ** _why didn’t he fight to stay alive, even for the slightest bit?_**

And to complete her cycle of anger, she turned to him and to herself.

Furious that he had left her on that runway and boarded the damn plane to his death, angry that she couldn't do the one job she had been assigned as his liaison, aggrieved beyond all ends that their first kiss would be destined as their last and she asked herself, constantly, **_why couldn't she give him a reason to survive? Why couldn't he find enough of a reason in her to live?_**

What she asked herself, more often and far more recently, would usually occur whenever a radio programme would lay over a famous segment where people would send in their stories for voice actors to reenact.

It was almost always about young couples reuniting after the war. Hated it so, not only for being too cavalier and dramatic, but it also represented something they had that she would never really have—a reunion with a loved one. And she hated it, above all, that they had the answers to the questions that plagued her nights and robbed her of her sleep, that they didn't get to ask the whispering in their heads. 

In the span of four years, Peggy's ran out of questions. But now, a spitting image of Steve sat in front of her, and the one word that registered in her mind was _why?_

He sighed, bringing her out of her reverie. “It’s a long story, Peg.”

She gritted her teeth. "I'll be the judge of that." The hardened senses of being an agent through the years of field work and vigorous training yelled at her mind— _steel yourself_ , it yelled. _The man in front of you is nothing but an impostor_ , nothing more than a sleeper agent sent to confuse her.

Her mind, the logical part, had been trying to take control of her right arm, to swipe the small hand pistol snugly hidden inside her purse, but she did no such thing. She remained frozen on the booth.

His eyes softened and, with the brilliant blues of his eyes, her resolve had been chipped away. “It’s a long story, Peg,” his repeated, his tone pressed on the matter, but his voice croaked, as if he's just been through war and she shut her eyes and bent her head down.

She still wanted to oust him. Yell at him, prove that he was an impostor. But a small inkling in her heart had tugged, that maybe it was him. A small, selfish part wanted the past back for herself, too.

Instead of the gun, her voice shook. “Please.” She tried to sound stronger, firmer, and resolved, but it was weak. She wanted to stop. “Before I am forced to shoot you down, get out of my sight.”

She heard him exhale loudly. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Peg. I’m with my best girl until the end of the line.”

She shook her head and buried her face into her palms, elbows digging into the diner table. “Then I must be going out of my mind.”

A small chuckle sounded from him. “If that’s the case, Peg, then we both are.” He rose from his side of the booth and paused at hers. He gave a tentative glance, as if he was asking for permission to slide in. But in the silence that she gave him, Steve scooted in the small space beside her.

“I don’t understand—“ her voice finally gave in and cracked, her tears barreling over and ran through a cheek. “You _died_. I heard you die over the radio!” she hissed.

Slowly, Steve raised a hand to her face and the pad of his thumb ran across her cheek, wiping away the tears. “I’m here now, Peg,” he insisted softly.

She didn’t know exactly what was in that voice, but something inside her had snapped. "Being _here_ , whoever you are—" she spat, even though the man who was in front of her couldn't possibly be an impostor. The nervousness, the tell of anxiety, even the scarlet tips of his ears—there was no way to replicate that. This was Steve Rogers. "—isn't nearly enough." She finished with a crisp tone that made the both of them wince.

He had the decency to look bashful. "Peg. . ." his breath now tainted with guilt, a bit of pity, and it flared her even more. She didn't need _his_ pity.

“Four years, I accepted. I gave you the dignity of your choice and now you come to me—“ she so badly wants to say an impostor. But she breathes in deeply. “—saying that you’re here as if it will make things all better!” she raised her voice indignantly, earning disgruntled looks from other patrons.

“Peggy—“ She shook her head fiercely.

“No. _Why—_ why now?”

Steve reached into his pocket and produced a familiar looking metal disk. He clicked it open and her own face greeted her. “All those years ago,” he began, as if the Valkyrie was a lifetime ago and not four years, “with Hydra and Johann Schmidt, the fight made me choose, and I did. I made a decision—and in doing so, I took your choice away."

He reached for her hands and set the compass inside her palm, the cool metal against her skin. For all of thin sheets of metal pressed together, with Steve's fingers cupping the very shape of her hands, it felt heavier than anything she's ever carried in her life.

"I won't lie. I'm not from around here, Peg. Not for many years, at least, and the friends I've made there, Peg—" a mixture of pain and longing came unto his face, and she wondered, what he had seen in the four years that he was gone to the world, "—and I guess what I'm trying to say is that, I'm here to give back the choice I stole when I made the decision to crash the plane."

Peggy looked down, allowing her tears to fall to the table's surface, her gaze fixed on the compass, unable to look back up at Steve, a gnawing fear eating at the ends of her mind. She nodded, instead, mutely, unwilling to trust her voice. 

"Last time, I chose differently and I had to live with that." Steve shook his head, wanting to say more, but closed his mouth shut and decided against it. "Right now, that doesn't matter. The decision I made back then doesn't matter. _Yours_ does, and whatever it is, I'm going to give you the dignity of your choice."

There was a lump in her throat. Thoughts ran rampant in her mind and she couldn't even begin to think of what she wanted to say. Instead, she stalled, "How about now? What do you choose now?"

"Now, I choose you, Peg. This is my choice."


End file.
